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| Consumer Tech News You Can Use.
What's Creepy, Whatâs Not?
Hello,
It's time for *Privacy Not Included's monthly round-up of consumer tech news you can use to shop smart for connected gadgets and apps. Enjoy!
What's Creepy? Peloton Problems What happened?
Peloton sells expensive treadmills alongside their popular exercise bikes. Unfortunately, a 6-year old was recently killed in an accident on one of these treadmills. Due to safety concerns, Peloton issued a recall and added a feature called Tread Lock that requires a four-digit passcode to keep their treadmills from starting up for anyone without authorized access.
Sounds great, right? Here's the problem. Peloton treadmill users now need that Tread Lock four-digit passcode to unlock their treadmill and Tread Lock requires a $39 per month subscription. If users cannot unlock their treadmill, they can't use the machine at all. Peloton is offering the Tread Lock subscription at no cost for three months and says they are working on restoring access to the treadmill without a subscription. However, Peloton has provided no timeframe for restoring the no-subscription access.
Many Peloton users are worried their costly treadmills will turn into expensive towel racks â not something they signed up for when they bought the treadmill. Creepy? Maybe. Does it feel like ransomware for your treadmill? Sure does.
Why this matters to you
Even if you don't own a Peloton, the issue of who owns and controls a connected device after purchase could be coming your way in the near future. Consider, during a recent heat wave in the US, power companies in Texas remotely turned up connected thermostats of customers trying to keep their homes cool. Seems these customers had signed up for an energy saver program they didn't realize gave the power companies the ability to control their smart thermostat until their homes got unexpectedly warm when they were trying to stay cool.
Having corporations control devices you own in your own home without your explicit awareness or consent, or companies making you pay extra to use a device you've already paid a lot of money for, is potentially pretty creepy. It certainly feels exploitative. And it's something we here at *Privacy Not Included plan to keep an eye on for you in the future.
What's (Slightly) Less Creepy? Ring Video Doorbells and the Police Here's an update on Ring video doorbells and the police, an issue we've been following for a while. In June, Ring (owned by Amazon) announced they are changing how police can request video from their network of Ring users. Here's what's changed â police used to be able to contact Ring users directly asking for video footage from their cameras. Ring's new policy requires police to publicly post a 'Request of Assistance' on the Neighbors app that connects Ring users, and hope someone in the area responds to the call.
Ring says in their statement they are doing this because "transparency and accountability are crucial to safer, better communities." And it is a step in the right direction. It's just probably not a big enough step, because Ring still refuses to disclose how many users had their personal information given to the police. This means there is no transparency into how often users' data is accessed by the government, a key transparency measure that helps us understand the scope of government surveillance.
If you're looking to buy a video doorbell for your home, we found the Eufy video doorbell and the Arlo video doorbell do a decent job at handling your privacy and security.
Happening Now: *Privacy Not Included is Growing! *Privacy Not Included started as a small, part-time project here at Mozilla back in 2017. Over the past four years, we've seen consumer interest in protecting their privacy grow as we've helped consumers shop smart for connected products. It's been quite a ride, and today *Privacy Not Included is a full time project with an exciting update â we've hired our first full-time researcher!
Misha Rykov joins us as we look to grow and expand *Privacy Not Included. Having Misha on board means we'll be able to review more products, keep those reviews better up-to-date, and expand our consumer advocacy work to help you protect your privacy in our ever more connected world. Welcome Misha!
And if you would like to help support our work here at *Privacy Not Included, a donation of any size would be very welcome.
Thank you,
Jen Caltrider
Lead, *Privacy Not Included
Mozilla
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